JUDICIAL ATTITUDES IN THE CUSTOMS-UNION CASE

The World Court decision of last September in the Austro-German Customs case has given rise in many quarters to an attack upon the Court itself. The criticism has not been based solely upon the eight-to-seven vote of the judges. We have too many one-man majorities in our own judiciary to find much concern there. But the alignment of nationalities from which the two groups of judges come has been the source of the greatest adverse comment.

For it so happens that the majority, holding illegal the proposed Customs Union, was composed of judges many of whose nations were opposed to such a pact, while the minority included men from countries either favoring or indifferent to it. Thus, the critics conclude, the decision must not have been arrived at objectively; it must, on the contrary, have been the product of political prejudice and national loyalties.